Jenna Lord’s given a voice recorder by the detective working on her case. She’s just woken up in the hospital, and he wants her to tell the truth of the story about what happened. Why she’s there. Why and how she almost died. Again.

She agrees, and we’re thrust into something much, much darker than expected.

Jenna’s family life is anything but pretty. Her father’s a surgeon and he’s exceptionally controlling and demanding. Jenna’s mother works long hours at the bookstore she’s in charge of, so she’s not around much. That may or may not have to do with the fact she’s also an alcoholic and avoids her husband. Then there’s Matt — Jenna’s brother — who enlisted in the military to get away from the mess of a family. She and he are close, and she turns to him when she needs an escape. Then there’s grandpa, who is in an institution because he’s unstable, too. That may or may not have something to do with the fire in his house, the one which caused Jenna many of the scars and skin grafts covering her body.

The rest of the scars, though, are her own doing.

It’s those scars which put her into therapy and which eventually lead to her being sent to Turing for school. Her father believes putting her in a new environment like Turing would be good for her and help her adjust to being a normal girl again, whatever that is. But when she starts school, things only become more complicated. She meets Mr. Anderson — Mitch — near immediately on her first day, and she meets him when he’s wearing close to nothing.

It’s the start of a relationship between a teacher and a student that should have clear cut answers. That should be about right and wrong. But it’s so, so not.

Drowning Instinct is the kind of novel I love: it’s character driven, it’s dark, and there are no right or wrong answers. It’s not a clear cut story, and just when I thought I had an idea of how things would progress, I’m not given the break. Because the characters — Jenna, especially — gets absolutely no breaks in this story. Her only break comes in the form of self-mutilation. That’s why she was getting therapy in the first place (or at least that’s how it’s explained and the truth is, that’s not necessarily the whole truth). Jenna cuts to escape the pain from her home, and because it gives her a sense of ownership.

And cuts heal.

The relationship between Jenna and Mitch, one which should cause the reader discomfort because of what it is, challenges expectations. Mitch is so good to Jenna and he’s the first adult who has given Jenna any reason to feel safe and secure. He also gives her opportunities and responsibility, and he believes in her not only as a student, but also as a runner. She’d given up running, but he wants her to go out for the team. He wants her to be his teaching assistant. He goes out of his way to keep an eye on her. While Jenna is at times skeptical about him, she eventually allows herself to see he is being genuinely concerned for her, and that he genuinely cares about her well-being — something she’s never experienced before outside of a therapy office. He knows a lot about her, and he happens to have this knowledge because he’s done his research (and he tells her that much) but also because he stumbles upon some of the same messes she does. He sees how unstable her family is first hand.

Then Mitch maybe delivers the biggest blow Jenna’s ever felt and the one that rattles her awake. He knows the truth to her biggest secret. One she doesn’t believe he could possibly know. But he does.  It almost seals her to him now. He’s ripped open one of her scars and lets it bleed. 

Even though Jenna decides he’s worth trusting, she’s wondering where the faults in his story are, and the closer she gets to him, the more time she spends with him in and outside the classroom, the more cracks she’s finding. His wife is never around and he never talks about her. Then there’s a picture in Mitch’s house that haunts Jenna. And then the time she called his house and his wife — supposedly away taking care of a sick family member — answers. It’s not just the wife situation that makes Jenna nervous though: it’s the fact Mitch appears to have had a relationship with another high school girl, Danielle, and she’s not exactly friendly with Jenna. Then there’s Danielle’s comment about how Mitch always liked the broken girls. These words rub Jenna wrong. They feel like knives on her flesh.

But she hasn’t pressed down yet.

The relationship between Jenna and Mitch is tortured. But it’s also safe. When they’re together, when he’s holding onto her with love and affection she so desperately needs and deserves, everything feels right. And yes, things get sexual. There is something so tender in those moments though that as readers, we almost forget they’re teacher and student. That Mitch is her superior. That he’s married. When they’re apart though, when Jenna’s left alone with her thoughts, that’s when things don’t seem right. That’s when she questions who Mitch is and whether or not he’s good for her. The thing is, she can’t stop herself from staying close to him.

He’s become her new method of cutting.

Bick’s talent is not only in drawing these incredibly complex characters. It’s the fact she has developed a pair of characters who aren’t clear cut on whether they’re victim or predator. It goes both ways. They feed off one another, and their secrets (and the secret of their relationship itself) tread a morally ambiguous line because the way it’s presented makes it feel so right and so wrong at the same time. Jenna deserves this kind of love and even though we aren’t entirely clear what’s going on in Mitch’s life, it just seems like he does too. And the way he treats Jenna makes it feel that way, too. They’re safety nets for one another time and time again. Even if there are suspicious things afloat. Jenna and Mitch are very broken people, as are the other characters in the story. Each character carries immense pain and sadness but never once does it come off as melodramatic. It’s drawn realistically, with a rawness that slices through what could/should be morally straight-forward territory for readers. None of these characters, even the ones with little page time, feels wasted and none of their struggles feel like shortcuts through the story.

What also stood out to me in this book was the use of place and space to tell the story. Bick is a Wisconsin author, and she’s not afraid to set her books here. Drowning Instinct is neat in being set both in suburban Milwaukee (where Jenna attends school) and in the more rural areas outside the suburbs. The rural settings add a haunting feel to the story and they mimic the relationship between Jenna and Mitch well: there’s the safety of the suburban setting but then there’s the questionable nature of nature itself in those more remote areas. In places like the cabin on Mitch’s quiet property. For me, the setting was a crucial layer to developing the story and the characters.

The book is well-paced, starting slower at the beginning as Jenna comes to in the hospital, but it eventually picks up speed until the very end. I had become so invested in the characters and unraveling the truths of these characters that I read through the bulk of it in one sitting. The reveals make use of subtle details woven into the story, but maybe the real power of the reveals is that they’re not necessarily all that settling. They add further shades of gray to the story and to the characters. There are no real answers here, but the feeling I walked away with when I finished the book was worth the uncertainty. I took away what I needed to take away, and I like to think it’s the same take away Jenna has. I also found myself crying near the end of the story, as well. I’d fallen so in love with the characters, their flaws and mistakes and all, that I couldn’t help but feel the full weight of everything crashing around them. Bick made me care enough to not only love the story but also emotionally connect with these hurting and aching characters, despite the endless stream of mistakes they made.

Drowning Instinct will appeal to readers who like their stories dark, realistic, and raw and who like their stories to have real voice behind them. These characters are desperate and broken, and the book is relentless. It’s wholly contemporary, and it’ll appeal to fans of Amy Reed and Courtney Summers with content and character execution, and the set up of the book — the short chapters, the great pacing — will make it quite appealing to fans of Ellen Hopkins, as well. I could also see this novel working for fans of Lucy Christopher’s Stolen and Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden for readers interested in novels about elicit and taboo relationships. I’ve read two other novels this year, neither of which I’ve had a chance to review, but it reminded me of a mash up of the two of them, and I’ve found it fascinated how this year’s novels are playing around with the norms of family, of safety, of security, of what it means to love and be loved, and just what survival takes. I have respect and admiration for authors who go for it full out, giving their characters challenge upon challenge, and Bick offers exactly that. 

I wouldn’t say this book doesn’t appeal to reluctant readers because it does, but I think more mature readers will walk away with a lot from this book, especially as it comes to issues of right and wrong. Those who appreciate Laurie Halse Anderson will want to give this one a shot, too. I didn’t touch on the metaphor here, the whole idea of the drowning instinct, but it’s a huge one smartly thread through the story, and readers who want a more literary read will find it here. The back cover summary sums it up really well, I think: this is a fairy tale with teeth and a novel about pain, deception, desperation and love. Without doubt, this book will stick with me for a long time, and it will be one of my 2012 favorites.

Review copy received from the publisher. This book also has one of the best covers around, doesn’t it?

Azael wakes up in a prison cell and has no idea how he got there nor why he’s there. It’s not the first time he’s ended up in prison either but it is the first time he can’t quite figure out what did him in. He remembers a fight between his gang, the MS13, faced off against the Crazy Crew, but he can’t help think this prison sentence feels wrong. He doesn’t get a phone call, and he isn’t getting news about his family. He’s also without a lawyer.

Things are even more complicated because Azael is forced to share a cell with Lexi, a white girl, with whom he has no interest. She’s not opening up, and he can’t help but wonder why she’s in prison and what she has to do with him.

The Knife and the Butterfly (TKTB) is Perez’s sophomore novel, and before delving into talking about what worked well in the story, I have to say I hope she continues writing the sorts of books she’s writing for a long time. This story, as well as her first What Can(‘t) Wait, feature Latino/a main characters and they’re both set in Houston. TKTB features a main character from El Salvador, and it’s a story not only about gang culture, but also about broken homes, poverty, and the challenges of being a minority. There aren’t a lot of stories tackling one — let alone all — of these issues, and these are the stories that when I read them, I know there is an eager audience for them. Never once do any of the issues come across as inauthentic or pandering. These aren’t issue-driven books but involve characters and situations that are relatable to audiences who often don’t have these sorts of stories written for them. Many times these stories are instead written at them.

TKTB is a character-driven story, rather than a plot driven one. It’s told through Azael’s eyes (and his name isn’t really Azael, it’s his street name — his real name is Martin, and understanding this distinction is crucial to understanding who he is) as he tries to put the pieces of the event that caused him to be sitting in a jail cell yet again. As he combs through his memories, we’re transported back through the events of the last few weeks and years of his life. Immediately, we know he comes from a troubled home. The only true family Azael’s had is his brother Eddie, and when he’s unable to to talk with Eddie about what happened and why he’s sitting in juvie, Azael begins to suspect something has really and truly gone wrong. He’s beginning to think maybe he’s lost his only family in whatever ensued.

While in his cell, Azael manages to convince one of the staff members to help him piece his story back together. In rummaging through his files, he stumbles upon a news article about the gang fight he vaguely remembers occurring, though much of the information about the whos and whats of the incident are redacted. What Azael realizes, though, is he has to figure out Lexi. Even though she is nothing like him and he has absolutely no interest in her, he has reason to believe that they wouldn’t be sharing a cell if there wasn’t a reason behind it. But as much as he observes her and as much as he tries to figure her out, he can’t.

Until he convinces his guard friend to take the journal she’s been writing in. That’s when he puts together the pieces of who, exactly, Lexi is.

As readers, we’re on the outside of who she is, as well. She’s not telling the story at all, and we never get her perspective until Azael gets ahold of her journal. Then we’re dropped right into her mind. Slowly, she reveals bits of her life, too. Lexi hasn’t had it easy; if anything, her life’s been as unstable as Azael’s, but in a number of different ways. She wasn’t involved in gang life at all, but she’d been shuffled around so much in her life, she never really had any support system nor role models nor the opportunity to truly succeed. Both the reader and Azael come to understand Lexi and we begin to sympathize with her. Because we’d only been in Azael’s head for so long, we’d only ever viewed Lexi the way he had, as a privileged white girl. But through her journal, we learn otherwise and we have to reassess our own assumptions about her. If you’re at this point and thinking that the story will turn into a romance, well, I’ll break the news: it doesn’t. Not a lick of romance in this book.

I can’t talk too much more about plot or character here, since it’d delve into spoiler territory, but I can say that I didn’t see how the two characters were connected through the length of the book. Not only that, but there’s a huge twist in the story that I didn’t see coming — and I credit Perez hugely for making it work out. I can usually put the pieces together quickly but this one didn’t do that to me, and I didn’t felt cheated or tricked, either. It was clever.

Because we’re exposed to both a variety of time periods in both Azael and Lexi’s lives, as well as a variety of mediums — the straight-forward narrative, the journal entries, news articles — there’s not a lag in the pacing. This is a relatively short book at just over 200 pages, and not a word nor a scene feels wasted. It’s edgy and it’s powerful, and it will appeal to reluctant readers. The obvious comparison for this book to me feels like Watt Key’s Dirt Road Home, but that may simply be because of the juvenile detention center setting (which will be enough comparison for many readers). To be fair, Perez’s story is more mature and treads territory geared toward older teen readers than Key’s story, but I think readers who want these types of stories won’t think twice about it, and readers who want stories about gang life will certainly want to pick this up. I don’t think there’s any doubt this book will have mega guy appeal. Azael’s voice is believable.

I’ll admit, I had a hard time reading this book because this story was not up my alley at all. In fact, I picked this book up right before heading to Dallas for ALA, but I didn’t read it on the airplane, nor while I had down time, nor even when I made it back home. I put it aside for a few weeks and came back to it with fresh eyes. This isn’t a knock on Perez’s writing nor story but rather the fact that I’m not the target audience of this book. But let me reiterate: there IS a target audience for this, and Perez does no disservice in writing a book that not only has this appeal, but it’s a story that’s also worth reading. This is the world many of the target readership may already be familiar with or one with which they’ve got fascination.

I’m a reader of author’s notes, but I know not everyone is. This is a book that reading the author’s note is worthwhile, but make sure you save it until you’ve finished the story at hand. Reading it beforehand may spoil the story’s twist.

 Review copy received from the publisher. The Knife and the Butterfly is available now.

As soon as I think I’m caught up on writing reviews, I find myself buried even deeper. Part of it is because I can’t write the review as soon as I finish the book — I need time to think through what points are worth talking about and which resonated — and part of it is simply because it takes a long time to write a cogent and thorough review. Alas, sometimes I have to remind myself it’s okay to write short(er) reviews that get to the key points. Then I think my understanding of what a shorter review is pretty skewed, too. The point of this all is to say that today, I’ve got two reviews for the price of one!

I heard about Jesse Andrews’s debut Me and Earl and the Dying Girl because of Capillya’s author thoughts post on the cover. I’m not a big fan of cancer stories, but I bit the bullet on this one because it looked like a much more light hearted approach to the heavy topic. And it was.

Greg’s always been sort of a social outcast and fine with it. In fact, he sort of prides himself on it because it means he can blend in and out of all the different cliques in his smallish high school. Plus, he and his best friend Earl like to spend their time making videos. They aren’t good at it, and Greg will tell you as much. As the story begins, we know that the story is actually already over and we’re being told the “what happened” via a lengthy flashback essay. Not only is the set up immediately engaging because of this, but the essay set up also allows Greg to incorporate film scripting right into the story, and it makes his passion for making films more palpable from the onset.

Greg’s always been a little awkward around girls, and he’s willing to admit this. Because of his desire to sort of maintain a status-less social standing, he doesn’t like to make commitments to girls, either. But then Greg finds out from his mother that Rachel, one of the girls who he knew from a church group, has leukemia. And Greg’s mom thinks it is a great idea he befriend her so she feels less alone. He’s not thrilled about the prospect — it messes with his invisibility and, well, he feels weird suddenly befriending someone who could potentially die — but Greg does it anyway. What Greg and Rachel get out of the relationship is more than either could have expected.

This is a book that does characterization very well. As much as Greg likes to pretend he’s a rebel and he’s worlds different than anyone else, the truth is, he’s an average teen. He is easy to relate to, and he’s got a sense of humor that’s enjoyable as a reader. Earl, on the other hand, has a much more challenging life and personality than Greg does, but because we’re seeing Earl through Greg’s eyes, we aren’t given the impression that Earl is anything but a pretty good friend to Greg (we learn this isn’t necessarily the case the further we get into the book, as Earl is almost a foil to Rachel).

Andrews’s story is light-hearted, even up until the end when inevitably, things take a turn for the worse with Rachel. Greg has a good sense of humor, and he’s willing to reflect on everything that happened to him with that humor in place. Early on in the book, we hear Greg’s given up his film-making aspirations, and as the story unfolds, readers are unsure when or how it happens. This was what kept me compelled — I had so much invested in Greg because I liked him and wanted to see him pursue his dreams, but when he talks about the last film he makes, I understood why he believes he’s done with film making.

There’s definite male appeal in this book, and I appreciate how Andrews did not go down the romance path in this book. What emerges between Greg and Rachel is at best friendship and, in my mind, it’s not even necessarily friendship. This story was much less about what Rachel needed as she sunk deeper into illness and much more about Greg learning to connect with other people and to connect with himself. Leukemia is sort of the tool, and it’s used well and treated fairly without becoming maudlin or being too convenient and easy. Readers who are wary of cancer stories can rest assured that while the outcome in the story won’t necessarily be the happy one for Rachel, it doesn’t require the reader to bring their own baggage and experiences to the story. This one’s about Greg learning about himself.

The voice sings in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and that, along with the set-up and execution of the story reminded me a lot of Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast. This book will appeal to fans of Herbach’s, as well as those who love Brent Crawford’s Carter series. Andrews’s debut will be available March 1.

Brian James’s Life is But a Dream is an exploration into the debilitating mental illness of schizophrenia. From the onset, I was impressed with James’s ability to not conflate schizophrenia with dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities). This story follows Sabrina as she becomes sicker and sicker, to the point her parents choose to institutionalize her for treatment. Prior to institutionalization, Sabrina’s life was full of color and fantasy, and she lived in what basically amounted to a dream world. Her experiences in the real world paralleled what most people experience in deep sleep. While it doesn’t necessarily sound scary, the effects of such distance from reality isn’t pretty and it causes Sabrina to act in ways that put her in danger.

While being treated, Sabrina meets Alec, a boy who convinces her the folks in the institution are working against her. Taking the drugs they’re giving her is only harming her, he says, and she begins to believe him. She doesn’t want to become brain dead, and she becomes convinced her life will be better if she doesn’t go along for the treatment. So she and Alex make an escape plan. To save themselves.

This part is spoiler, so feel free to skip down to the following paragraph. As a reader who knows a bit about schizophrenia (and about Sabrina’s experiences with it), I was never quite sure whether Alec actually existed or if he was one of those dreams concocted in Sabrina’s mind. The evidence to support either argument is in the book — he could be real or he could be a figment of her dream world telling her to act a certain way. Even in the end, when Sabrina makes a run for it, it’s uncertain either way.

The uncertainty, though, might be the greatest strength in the book. I found the writing to be distancing, and while it works for Sabrina’s world and her own voice, it kept me far away from her, too. I couldn’t connect with her in any way, and because I wanted to, I became frustrated. It makes sense because that’s how these illnesses work, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it works for readers. It’s a dream world.

Moreover, I found it a little disappointing that the person who’d save Sabrina would be a boy, as I find that a trend that won’t stop coming. Even if what I said in the previous paragraph were true, it still doesn’t settle too well for me. I’d not come to see Sabrina as much of a romantic or one who’d love a relationship with Alec, but it’s something I could have bought had Sabrina’s voice been stronger and she let me in. Fans of stories about mental illness will want to read this one, especially those who are interested in schizophrenia because James nails it (I’d say textbook nails it, but textbooks can leave out the emotional side of the illness, and James offers that quite well). Life is But a Dream will be available in mid-March.

Review copies provided by the publishers.